By Katie Quinlisk

In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, Barnard College President and 53-year-old Debora Spar opened up about her ideological struggles as an aging feminist academic in the professional world — a world in which women who do not embrace anti-aging procedures, no matter how mild, are becoming a minority. Spar brings up a problem with radical feminism, which puts as many rules on femininity as it does liberate it. The solution to this dilemma lies in the acceptance of liberal feminism, which asserts that true liberation is found in a woman’s choice.

Spar explains her feelings of hypocrisy. As a feminist, she is ideologically opposed to the idea that female aging should be treated as a disease that needs treatment and prevention. However, as a 53-year-old academic professional, Spar admits she feels tempted, even pressured, to indulge in minor anti-aging procedures for her own self confidence and to keep up with a professional workforce that only seems to be getting younger. She feels both conflicted and guilty because of these sentiments.

Spar questions how aging feminists should confront this issue, and how women in her position should reconcile their desire for a youthful appearance with their radical feminist roots. She asks what happens when ideals held in the name of women’s liberation bring guilt and shame instead of liberation.

This feeling is a familiar one. I ask myself these questions when I shave my legs in the shower, when I apply blush onto my cheeks, when I put mascara in my lashes and when I wear heels. I feel this pull between my desire to enhance my appearance and my raging feminist core. I initially feel shameful, but then, I get angry. Because under certain interpretations, feminism — a movement intended to free women and the female body from the suffocating talons of the patriarchy — actually creates its own set of rules about women and their bodies. These rules can make being a feminist who cares about your appearance a mental minefield.

Essentially, Debora Spar and I are caught between two different schools of feminist thought: radical feminism and liberal feminism. We are caught between the very different ways these feminisms view the female body.

Radical feminism advocates for the end of patriarchy via retaliation, and the idea that women’s decisions regarding their bodies ultimately affect all of womankind. Age! Let your hair grow grey! Embrace your wrinkling face in protest and raise your sagging arms in rebellion! Revolt against the idea that women must be young to be worthy! And it proclaims all this with good intentions, and with good results — after all, this radical second wave of feminism was the primary feminist movement of the 60s and 70s and look how far we have come.

But in its attempt to free the female body from patriarchal rules, radical feminism, if taken too far, creates even more rules for women.
Radical feminism forgets some women wear makeup because it makes them feel beautiful, and some women dye their hair because it makes them feel vivacious and confident.

Liberal feminism, on the other hand, asserts that true liberation is found in a woman’s choice — in her full political and bodily autonomy. It is in this feminist school of thought, where conflicted feminists like Debora Spar and I find comfort. One of the pillars of this wave is that true liberation means full female bodily autonomy — essentially that women can do whatever they want with their bodies — and that in this choice liberation is found.

From this liberal feminist viewpoint, a woman’s choice to embrace anti-aging procedures and beauty routines can be empowering. Liberal feminism recognizes that though makeup, Botox, hair dye and heels may have patriarchally bound roots, women have appropriated such beauty products and procedures. These are no longer things that make women simply more appealing and worthy in the eyes of men, these things make some women feel beautiful, sexy, confident and empowered.

So dye your hair and put on your makeup if that is what you want. Or let your hair grow grey and have your years of smiling show themselves in wrinkles by your eyes and cheeks. The choice is yours, and both choices are entirely valid and empowering in different ways. Whichever you choose, realize that the choice to embrace beauty and anti-aging products and procedures or not is a feminist choice. And the fact that women have this choice is a testament to our liberation. Let feminism free your body and mind, but do not let it impose rules and frustration.

Rejecting beauty and anti-aging procedures in the name of usurping the patriarchy is a very narrow-minded feminist perspective. True feminism is recognizing full political and bodily autonomy for women in its many shades. At the end of the day, Debora Spar’s decision to get cheek fillers is her own choice.

Though she may be concerned by the number of women turning towards anti-aging procedures in her field, she is not solely responsible for the surgical virginity of female academia.

Ultimately, shaming Courtney Cox for her choice to undergo plastic surgery is no different from shaming a woman for taking birth control. Bodily autonomy is exhaustive, not exclusive to certain organs.

Katie Quinlisk, FCRH ’18, is an English major from West Chester, Pennsylvania.